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Video: Big storms predicted for January, February

Closed captioning of: Big storms predicted for January, February

>>>after crippling
heat waves
in summer, a big change may be in store. weather predictions, a cooler and wetter winter ahead. we may see scenes like this. joining me now, dr. reis holter who wrote a book called "the instateable
bark beetle
." we won't talk about the book this morning, but i want to talk to you about the winter. how bad will it get?

>>well, good morning,
craig
. by all accounts, it's -- there are going to be a lot of snow on the
eastern seaboard
, but more importantly, it -- the drought looks like it will persist on the plains, and that's really why we are right now. the
mississippi river
is down,
craig
, and this -- this is -- these aren't good times, man.

>>and going -- looking ahead to the winter, when we start talking about the frigid predictions, are there particular areas that will see it worse than others?

>>well, you know, we're hoping that we're going to see snow in the rockies. that's for sure. and as i say, the
eastern seaboard
in january and february, supposed to get some pretty good storms. but, you know, what they haven't taken into account is this missing
sea ice
,
craig
, up in the arctic, and when the ice isn't there, all the energy that's stored in the arctic, bleeds up into the atmosphere, and then we get these huge blobs of the
jet stream
bringing more intense
cold weather
down into the lower 48 so it's a crapshoot right now, you know?

>>let's take a look at past snow totals. we can pull those up.

>>sure.

>>take a look at these. i think you can probably see them on your screen there. is this year's prediction part of normal fluctuations or looking at something entirely different here?

>>yeah, well, we are looking at something entirely different. the earth is warming up, and as things warm up, we are getting wild storms, wild weather, and we are supposed to see higher totals, but, you know, it's like there is a new normal happening all the time, and we know one thing, the weather is going to be wild, and wooly.